


After Last Night

by tuppenny



Series: Scars [3]
Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Verbal Abuse, cursing, what can I say this series has never been G rated and it's not about to start now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 12:00:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14873372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuppenny/pseuds/tuppenny
Summary: Jack and Katherine tackle the difficult task of telling Joseph Pulitzer some important news.(This spoils the end of the first fic in the series, but if that doesn't bother you, then have at it; it's its own little self-contained thing, too :) )





	After Last Night

**Author's Note:**

> From a prompt seeinthestars gave me of writing Joseph Pulitzer causing drama over Kath & Jack's engagement

Katherine woke up with Jack’s arms wrapped around her, his breath hot against her neck. She smiled as she listened to his heavy, even breathing. Soon enough, she’d wake up to this every morning. Soon enough, she’d have Jack in her bed every night. Soon enough, they’d be married.

Her heart skipped a beat at the thought; in many ways, their engagement had made perfect sense, but mostly it had been a lightning bolt from blue sky, and she was going to need a while to get used to it.

He’d done it on an impulse, as he’d freely admitted late last night between desperate touches and frantic kisses, but he’d been wanting it—wanting  _her_ —for years, and she felt the same way about him.

“Hey,” Jack mumbled, starting to wake up.

“Hey,” she said, rubbing the arm he’d slung around her waist.

“Guess what,” he said, his mouth dry and his eyes glued shut with sleep.

“Mmm?”

“I love you.”

She laughed and rolled onto her other side so she could lie face to face with him. “You better, seeing as yesterday you asked me to marry you, and I said yes.”

He grinned, kissing her gently on the lips. “I really do, though. I fuckin’ love you, babe.”

“Oh, yeah? You want to show me how much?” She teased, and he licked his lips, unable to keep his eyes from flicking down to her chest, which was still bare from what they’d done the night before.

He gave her a calculating look. “How long do we got?”

“All day,” she purred, running her fingers through his hair.

He growled and flipped her onto her back, swinging one leg across her hips. “Ohhh, Kitty, you shouldn’ta told me that.”

She giggled as he ran his hands up her sides and bent to kiss her collarbone. “Take as long as you want, Jackie,” she said. “I’m all yours.” 

  
*

He fell asleep again after, but Katherine laid awake, staring at the ceiling. She was happier now than she’d ever been, and she was certain of that, but the edges of that happiness had started to grow cold with the growing realization that, at some point, she had to share this news with her father. Her father.

“Dammit,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes shut. She flicked her index finger against her left wrist and bit her lower lip, trying to shut off her mental movie reel of disastrous encounters with her father. It didn’t work. Scene after scene flashed by—her father telling her all of her accomplishments were down to him, sneering after she’d told him about her new job, saying she’d clearly overshot the freshman fifteen, accusing her of throwing her life away, asking her why she couldn’t be more like her brothers…

“Ace?” Jack’s voice jolted her out of her head, and she jerked at the feeling of his hands kneading into her shoulders. “You okay?”

“Yes,” she said automatically, and then she quickly shook her head. “No. No, I… no.”

“Wanna talk?”

“I don’t know, I…” She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes. “It’s my father.”

“Fuck. We hafta tell him, don’t we.”

 _“I_ have to. I’m not making you go through that.”

“We’s gettin’ married—he’s gonna be my problem soon, too.”

“Not yet, though.”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t try ta weasel out on a technicality, Ace.”

“It’s not a technicality. It’s the truth. He’s not your problem yet, and I refuse to let him be horrible to you about this.”

“He will be eventually.”

“But it doesn’t have to be now. Besides, the first bit will be the worst, and I’m not putting you through that.”

“It’s not about puttin’ me through somethin’. It’s about me standin’ by my wife-to-be.”

“I’m not doing this to you. I’m just not.”

“Do you see me askin’ ya ta get me out of it?”

“You’re not getting out of anything! I don’t expect you to be there! This isn’t your responsibility!”

“Anythin’ that hurts you hurts me, Ace! That’s how this works! Hell, that’s how it’s  _always_  worked, ever since I found ya cryin’ in the library an’ felt my heart startin’ ta crack! I—”

“You  _what?”_

“I toldja yesterday I’ve loved ya since college,” he grumbled.

“Tell me again,” she said, her voice softening.

“That I’ve loved you since college?”

“Tell me how long you’ve loved me,” she said, slipping her hand into his. “Tell me how long you’ve wanted me. Tell me how I made your heart flip and when you figured out you were in deep.”

He huffed a laugh. “I already said I’ve loved you since the lake,” he said. “You opened up to me, just a bit, an’ I… that was it. I was a goner. An’ after that when I hurt ya an’ realized it didn’t make me feel better, just worse, I… I knew you were different. That what I felt f’r you was… it was bigger. That it was gonna last. I knew that ‘cause you made me feel somethin’ in a way my other crushes hadn’t, an’ I…” He grimaced and jerked his hand away. “Fuck, girlie, this is hard!”

“I don’t know how long I’ve loved you,” Katherine said, picking up where he’d left off. “I didn’t love you at the lake. I  _certainly_  didn’t love you at the library.” They both laughed. “But even back then, there was something about you…” She smiled. “It wasn’t love, not yet, but I knew that I wanted to get to know you better. To find out more about you. You caught my eye  _and_  my interest all the way back then, Jack Kelly, and you’ve had them both ever since.”

“How ‘bout now?” He asked, nibbling at her earlobe.

“I already told you I have all day,” she said, her voice sultry. “I take it you want to try your hand at holding my interest a little more… directly?”

“They ain’t gonna be no tryin’ about it,” Jack rumbled. “I’m gonna make it so’s the only thing you c’n think about is me.” He moved his lips from her ear to her neck. “Trust me, babe—I can make it so’s ya don’t have room in your head for nothin’ but me. Me, me, an’ only me.”

“Prove it,” she breathed, rolling her hips against him.

He did.

*

Katherine knew that marching into her father’s office without an appointment was not going to make this any easier, but since he was going to be livid no matter what, there was no sense in trying to please him about anything at all. He was angry so much of the time that she figured he probably enjoyed it, in some sick way that she understood better than she’d like, so she refused to feel at all guilty as she shoved his door open and marched into his inner sanctum.

“What are you doing here?” He asked, removing his glasses as he looked up at her.

“No hello? Okay,” she said. “I guess I’ll be blunt, too, then. I’m engaged to Jack Kelly.”

 _“What?”_  He shot up out of his chair.

“You get three questions before I leave,” she said. “Are you sure you want that to be one of them?” She was deliberately annoying him now; she could feel herself doing it even as her brain seemed to float away from her body.  

“Katherine Ethel Pulitzer,” he growled, “You cannot seriously be telling me that you are going to marry the boy who made my life so damn difficult that he nearly had to be  _expelled_  from my institution?”

“That’s question number one, I suppose,” she said, nonplussed. “And the answer to that is yes, I am.” 

“Are you  _trying_  to be difficult?”

“Yes,” she said. “Not by getting engaged to Jack; I’m dead serious about that. I love him, and he loves me. But I knew you’d react like this, so I figured I might as well get some enjoyment out of telling you, and the only way I know how to do that is to drive you several notches higher on the apoplexy scale.”

“Get out!” He yelled.

“Are you sure?” Katherine said, still infuriatingly calm. “You still have one question, and once I leave, I will not be answering anything else you ask me about my engagement.”

“Get. Out.” He hissed. “After everything I did for you, everything I sacrificed for you, all of the money and connections and advantages I gave you so that you’d have the world at your tiny little feet, you remain blindingly ungrateful. You could have anything you wanted, anything your heart desired, and yet here you are, throwing your life away for gutter trash.” He snorted. “And most confusing of all? I thought you were a smart girl, Katherine, and yet it seems that I was wrong; you’re an idiot who’s too stupid to realize just what a big mistake she’s making.” He shook his head and sat back down. “Well. I can’t stop you from burning all of your accomplishments and potential to the ground, but I can refuse to watch you do it. And I do. Get out, Katherine. And don’t come back.”

“If that’s what you want,” she said, shrugging, “Then I’m happy to oblige.” She spun on her heel and left the room, slamming the door behind her. She nodded to her father’s secretary as she left—the poor woman wasn’t a part of this, she hadn’t done anything wrong, she deserved basic politeness even though Katherine’s stomach was in knots—and somehow managed to stumble out onto the street.

She wasn’t able to keep it together the entire way home, though, and she saw more than one person on the subway inch away from her as she shivered into her hands.

“Hey—hey, there,” a slightly drunk scene girl said, crouching in front of Katherine. “Are you havin’ a seizure or somethin’? Need a pill?”

“No,” she said, teeth chattering. “But thank you. I’m fine. Just… just cold.”

The girl raised an eyebrow, clearly not buying it, but when Katherine faked a grimace of a smile and nodded, the girl shrugged and left.

Katherine staggered off the train and over to a bench on the platform, squeezing her eyes shut and unable to make it any farther. “Fuck fuck fuck,” she whispered, wishing she’d taken a taxi instead. Her father was wrong about a lot of things, but he was right about one thing—she was an idiot. She was an idiot for thinking she was strong enough to confront him, strong enough to make it home, strong enough to do any of this. Strong enough to love Jack the way he deserved.  _“Fuck,”_  she muttered, shaking her head rapidly back and forth, trying to pull it together, heedless of the stream of people washing by and looking askance at her.

“Kath?”

Her head shot up.  _“Davey?”_

“Hey,” he said, slipping out of the wave of foot traffic and onto the bench next to her. “Are you—no, that’s silly, you’re clearly not okay—what do you need?”

“Jack,” she said, her voice breaking.

“Okay,” he said, whipping out his phone and clicking through to Jack’s contact info. Katherine felt a surge of love for Davey just then, grateful to him for not simply saying that she had a phone, too, for not telling her that she was weak for needing someone to help her through whatever this was, for not trying to calm her down on his own. “Jack,” she heard him say as she pulled her knees to her chest and buried her head in the space between, “Hey, man. I’m at the, uh, Lexington Avenue and 63rd Station with Kath. Yeah, yeah, headed downtown. Can you get over here? Everything’s fine—well, I mean, it’s not, but there’s no need to flip out—she’s just a little upset and needs you, okay? Mhmm. Mhmm. Yep. We just got off the F Train. We’re on the platform still. Huh? Yeah, of course, I’m not—sure, yeah. Okay. Call if you don’t see us. Yeah, okay. Bye.” She heard him clear his throat gently. “Kath? He’s on his way. He’ll be here in about fifteen. C’n you hang on until then?”

She nodded, not trusting her voice.

“Okay.” He shifted on the bench and laid a hand on her back. “Do you… Is there anything else I can do?”

She shuddered. “Just… stay?”

“You got it.”

They sat like that for what seemed like hours, but really it was only ten minutes before Jack came barreling down the stairs to the subway, shoving aside anyone who didn’t see him coming and jump out of the way in time. “Baby!”

“Jackie,” she said, raising her head and trying not to cry.

Davey sprang up to give Jack room to slide in next to Katherine, getting a slight nod of thanks from Jack for his efforts. Jack immediately pressed himself against his fiancée and threw his arms around her. “Shh, baby, shh, I’m here, I’m here, you’s okay, love, I’m right here…”

Neither Jack nor Katherine noticed Davey smile slightly and leave.

“Jackie,” she said, tears finally beginning to fall. “Jackie, I… I went to see my father…”

“Fuck,” he exhaled, somehow hugging her even tighter. “Why didn’t you— _why?”_

“To get it over with,” she said, shrugging slightly.

“No, I mean—why didn’t you wait for me?”

“I told you! I knew he’d be like this, and I didn’t want him hurling abuse at you—it’s not right!”

“But it is as long as it’s directed at you?”

“No, but—that’s different. He’s my father. He… he…”

“He don’t have the right ta do that to ya, girlie,” Jack said fiercely. “Sure, he’s your father, but that don’t mean shit. No one gets ta talk ta you like that.  _No one.”_

“He had it hard growing up, Jack, he doesn’t know—”

“Bullshit. I had it hard, an’ ya don’t hear me cussin’ out every last person who does somethin’ what rubs me the wrong way, do ya?”

She shook her head, unable to speak.

“Look, baby,” Jack said softly, pressing a kiss to her hair, “We’s a team from here on out, okay? I think we have been for years, ta be honest, but now it’s official. An’ ya gotta let me help ya with the hard stuff, right? I know ya didn’t want me ta be there t’day, an’ I appreciate that, but your father hurts ya, sweetheart, an’ I don’t want ya talkin’ ta him alone anymore. It ain’t good for ya.”

“I know,” she murmured, twisting her head back and forth to wipe her tears on her sleeve. “But it’s not good for you, either, and I’d rather him be awful to me than to you. I can’t let you… I… He’s not your father, he’s only in your life because of me, and I…” She growled in frustration. “You don’t deserve any of this drama, Jack! Pick someone else! Pick someone easier! Pick someone better!”

“Fuck that shit!” Jack snapped. “We’s gotta get over this deservin’ crap, Kitty. You’s the person I want. You’s the person I love. They ain’t no one better f’r me than you, an’ you ain’t allowed ta doubt that ever again. Got that?”

She cried.

“Got that?” He repeated, shaking her just a little.

She cried harder, and he sighed, stroking her hair, waiting for her to cry herself out. 

“Got that?” He asked again, once she’d had time to steady her breathing. 

“Got it,” she said then, unwrapping her arms from her knees and shifting to wrap them around him instead. “I’m… Jack, I’m sorry. I should’ve… I should’ve told you what I was going to do. I should’ve brought you along, since you’d asked me to. I should’ve… I did it all wrong. I fucked up.”

“Your heart was in the right place,” Jack said, shushing her. “You’ll get better at this as ya go along, babe. I will, too.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I… Yeah,” she said, nodding against his neck. “Yeah. Thanks, baby.”

“You bet.” They paused, listening to the next train pull in, to the bustle of people leaving and boarding and speeding away. After a while, Jack smiled, tugging Katherine into his lap and kissing the side of her head. “Okay, then. Okay.” He rubbed her back and listened to her heartbeat for a bit, unable to stop another smile from spreading across his face. “Kath?” 

“Mmm?”

“I fuckin’ love ya, girlie. You know that?”

She laughed shakily and nodded. “I fucking love you, too, Jack.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I love these crazy kids


End file.
